Drunk, chainsmoking, and staring at the sky.

F-15s don't sound like commercial airliners. I'd never heard anything like it. A few times, I saw one of the fighters banking through Manhattan's airspace. But mostly I just heard them. I was pretty shitfaced, smoking one American Spirit after the other. From my vantage point on the roof of an East Village apartment building, I saw the fighter com briefly into view again, and I thought:

"You're late. Much too late."

September 11, 2001.

Earlier in the day, around 8:50am, I was in the back room of my company on 38th street between 5th and 6th. A coworker told me that a plane had hit one of the Twin Towers. That didn't make sense. Since my office had a direct view of the World Trade Center, I went to see what was happening.

It was insane. Impossible. Huge. It was an enormous hole in the fucking building.

I went to the conference room next door to check in with my other colleagues. Spent a few minutes with them, then went back to my office to try and reach Maggie. She answered. She had the news on, so she knew what had happened.

While I was talking to her and staring out the window, another plane came into view, heading downtown. Fast.

"Maggie," I said. "there's another plane. Why would they let another plane into this airspace?"

Impact. Fire. And everything changed. September 11, 2001.

There are thousands of people who aren't going to have thousands of children who won't make thousands of friends. There are thousands of couples that are never going to meet, and that's a lot of love that's gone missing.

There's a lot of tragedy in this world, but this is the one that happened my city. The one that I saw with my own eyes. The one that changed my life and country.

Love to all.